So endet die Demokratie

by David Runciman

'Scintillating ... thought-provoking ... one of the very best of the great crop of recent books on the subject.' Andrew Rawnsley, ObserverDemocracy has died hundreds of times, all over the world. We think we know what that looks chaos descends and the military arrives to restore order, until the people can be trusted to look after their own affairs again. However, there is a danger that this picture is out of date.Until very recently, most citizens of Western democracies would have imagined that the end was a long way off, and very few would have thought it might be happening before their eyes as Trump, Brexit and paranoid populism have become a reality.David Runciman, one of the UK's leading professors of politics, answers all this and more as he surveys the political landscape of the West, helping us to spot the new signs of a collapsing democracy and advising us on what could come next.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, History, Philosophy, Political Science, Sociology, Audiobook

Hardcover

First published May 1, 2018

About the author

David Runciman teaches politics at Cambridge.

He writes regularly about politics and current affairs for a wide range of publications including the London Review of Books. The author of several books, he also hosted the widely-acclaimed podcast Talking Politics, along with the series ‘History of Ideas’. Past Present Future* is his new weekly podcast, where he is exploring the history of ideas from politics to philosophy, culture to technology.

*Ideas from the past, questions about the present, shaping the future.

Reviews

[Murtaza · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short but compelling analysis as to why democracy as we know it is pretty much over, though it will continue ambling along in zombie form for the foreseeable future. While you could argue that the book was prompted by Trump, authoritarian populism is only one factor that is making our old democratic norms and systems effectively obsolete. As Yuval Noah Harari has articulated, the rate of technological change is making the idea of traditional participatory democracy effectively impossible. The fake news and hacking crisis that plagued the last election is only a foretaste of what is to come. Under the threat of rapidly changing technologies and resulting changes in social norms and human organization, there is no way our ossified old political institutions are going to keep up. They were never expected to last forever anyways, and Trump is merely a symptom of the breakdown that is currently underway.

The most interesting part of this book for me were the descriptions of possible "coups," aside from the traditional military takeover that we are familiar with. I think its clear that the United States and many other countries are undergoing subtle coups, with ruling parties and powerful private interests hollowing out state institutions over time rather than knocking them over outright. This is a smarter way of proceeding than trying to take over the state completely, and less likely to engender popular resistance. We are also clearly living in a "zombie democracy" where the most participation generally required of the public is cheering or booing the political performers from time to time, as well as providing assent for the show to go on every four years. Not particularly inspiring or democratic when you think about it.

"Democracy" is as close to a religion as you get in liberal society, so I think Runciman deserves credit for being brave enough to commit blasphemy here by pronouncing it effectively dead. He is not an authoritarian by any stretch, he is merely making a case that it has had a good run and is in "middle-age" with its best years behind it. Like anyone else in middle-age, democratic states are now beginning to contemplate their inevitable death. A version of democracy may continue existing on life-support for many years to come, but there is little hope of revivifying the youth of a system that is past its prime. Looking at historical alternatives I was interested in his idea of epistocracy, or rule by the educated, though he makes a compelling case that there is no way for a democracy to turn into an epistocracy once it has proceeded down a certain path. Epistocracies also have their own problems, as our intellectual elites have shown themselves to be as susceptible to follies as the public at large. For the most part I was simply glad to learn the term and how it differed from the "technocracy" that people usually muse about. The discussion of anarchism was very brief but also offered some ideas on how a post-democratic society could be organized at the local level.

A fairly interesting book that offers a short primer on our possible political futures. Probably worth reading for anyone who votes or is interested in where the liberal democracies are heading.

[Rojita Rojîta · Rating 4 out of 5]

خب بین 3 و 4 امتیاز شک داشتم و دارم
اینم بگم که این امتیاز به معنای موافقت و تایید حرفهای نویسنده نیست، این امتیاز بیشتر به این دلیل هست که این کتاب به شدت منو مجبور به فکر کردن و بازبینی نظرات و عقایدم راجع به دموکراسی کرد و همچنین توقع و انتظارم از دموکراسی

[Charles Haywood · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the past year, several high-profile books have been published that purport to analyze the future of democracy. All are reactions, and not positive reactions, to the election of Donald Trump. All are written by people of the Left, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are either wrong or bad, although there is certainly a very strong correlation between being Left and being both wrong and bad. As part of my own analysis of a future Reaction, of which the death or massive alteration of so-called liberal democracy is a necessary part, I am slogging through these books (and also doing so in order that you may avoid doing so). How far I will get through the stack I am not sure, but I did get through this book, David Runciman’s "How Democracy Ends."

Runciman’s work is somewhat repetitive, somewhat rambling, and somewhat silly. But to give credit where credit is due, it is not unhinged, and at least recognizes that the end of democracy as we know it today in the West is inevitable. His prediction is not that we’ll end up with some kind of dictatorship, or, to use the favorite current buzzword of the Left, authoritarianism. Most of the book is Runciman analyzing bad ways democracy could end, in a stream of consciousness style, but his actual, somewhat hedged, prediction seems to be that we’ll end up with an enervated democracy in the West, with countries full of rich, childless old people passively accepting that they have no real say in government, an eternal Japan. Leaving aside that the lifespan of any such society is going to be very much shorter than eternal, it’s not even clear that such an end state is better than the supposedly undesirable alternatives Runciman offers as possibilities for democracy’s end—coup, catastrophe, or technological takeover.

Runciman is honest enough, too, to admit that democracy has until very recently been regarded as a terrible system. Yes, Winston Churchill in 1947 famously said that democracy was the least bad of the possible alternatives, but as Runciman points out, at that point the other choices currently or recently on offer were pretty obviously terrible. Although he does not dive deeply into political philosophy (or anything else), it is only very recently that pure democracy has been exalted by large numbers of people, and such exaltation would have horrified the American Founding Fathers, not to mention every other political thinker until the twentieth century. Why this should be, why it has been forgotten that democracy is, and is obviously, subject to fatal deficiencies, is not clear to me. Part of it is simple ignorance—if you asked random Americans to differentiate among “republic,” “representative democracy,” and “democracy,” only a tiny percentage would be able to offer any response that made any sense. The other part is probably the inevitable descent of liberal democracy, the necessary culmination of John Stuart Mill’s pernicious philosophy. But either way, democracy as pushed today is really a new thing, which implies that cutting back on democracy isn’t that big a change.

Still, why Runciman thinks democracy as it exists today in the West is certain to end isn’t obvious. It’s more of a conclusion he announces, and he’s also happy to tell us he has no solutions to offer. Honesty is the best policy, I suppose. Of course, I know why I think democracy, in the sense of “liberal democracy,” is doomed, and I will be happy to explain at length. But for a man of the Left, the current political system in the West, and the arc on which it is on, seem ideal, with ever more power accruing to the Left to enforce ever greater emancipation on everyone. Yet Runciman does not advert to this, and he does not identify any specific reason why democracy will necessarily end. His analysis instead echoes Toynbee or Spengler; it’s driven by the repeated assumption that political systems, like humans, have stages and a lifespan, a view that is long out of fashion. In fact, Runciman often refers to Western democracy as “no longer young” and now “middle-aged,” drawing explicit biological-type conclusions from that premise. He says that while “Western democracy is over the hill . . . [but] the declining years of anyone’s life are sometimes the most fulfilling.” That’s the sort of thing aging hippies tell themselves as their bodies start to sag. On the other hand, he rejects the usual fear of today’s lazy prognosticators, that we are re-living the 1930s. We are too rich, he says, and most of the West is too old, to bear any real relation to the 1930s. Which is true, but it still doesn’t answer why he thinks democracy is effectively doomed. (Me, I think it’s basically because, as Francisco Franco’s brother-in-law, Ramón Serrano Suñer, said, when asked “Why did the [Spanish] Civil War happen?” answered, “We just couldn’t stand one another.”)

Anyway, putting that issue to the side, first up is coups—the “armed takeover of democratic institutions.” By pure coincidence, the book I read just before this one was Edward Luttwak’s classic, "Coup d’État: A Practical Handbook." Runciman relies heavily on Luttwak’s book, though why is unclear, since all of his discussion here revolves around Trump, whose actions (and the actions of his enemies) bear no resemblance to anything in Luttwak’s book. Runciman’s basic point seems to be that the circumstances surrounding Trump’s rise and Presidency are the dog that didn’t bark. Trump didn’t do anything crazy; the generals didn’t decide to not obey him; the bureaucracy continued to do what it wanted. Then Runciman spins a counter-factual to further illustrate his point—he correctly points out how dramatic it would be, in fact a form of coup, he claims, had Trump been defeated and refused to accept the election results. He sighs with relief that did not happen. But he seems completely blind to the glaringly obvious fact that the converse did happen—Hillary Clinton and her vast web of myrmidons, throughout the media, the federal bureaucracy, the legal community, and the corporate and academic worlds, have overtly refused to accept Trump’s legitimacy and formed a powerful, and powerfully funded, #Resistance to deny Trump the power of the Presidency and to throw him out of office through any means possible. Not for a moment did any of them accept the results. In fact, yesterday Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor and Democratic Party super-heavyweight, called for the “annulment” of Trump’s election—that is, not just that Trump be forcibly removed from office, but every act performed by government during his administration be declared void. (Probably Reich would also chisel Trump’s name out of any place it appeared in stone.) Yet Runciman says nothing at all about this movement, although, to be sure, this is not a coup in the sense of an “armed takeover,” since the Resistance is already in power, and just trying to maintain that power by emasculating and overthrowing Trump.

Turning away from Trump, Runciman talks quite a bit about the 1967 Greek coup, contrasting it to 2008, when similarly unsettled circumstances did not lead to a coup. At least it didn’t lead to an armed coup—Runciman dances around the question whether there was instead a different kind of coup, where the European Union effectively seized power from the people elected by the Greeks to run their country. Runciman chalks the difference up to the aged population of Greece today (median age is 47); as he says, “political violence is a young man’s game,” so as the population ages, “Entropy replaces explosive changes as the default condition of politics.” I think this analysis is right, although Runciman beclowns himself by never mentioning the real issue in 1967, which was the quite legitimate fear of Communist takeover, following the actual civil war, ending in 1950, in which the Communists were defeated in Greece. (Note, of course, as always, that those who led the 1967 coup were put in jail for the rest of their lives, while Communists were never punished in any way for their far greater crimes. Wikipedia has a whole lengthy article on the “Trials of the Junta.” Needless to say, there is no article on the “Trials of the Communists.”)

Runciman then sidles away from actual coups to claim that a supposedly related supposed phenomenon, “executive aggrandisement—when elected strongmen chip away at democracy while paying lip service to it—looks like being the biggest threat to democracy in the twenty-first century.” Anyone who is paying attention knows that is code for attacking Poland and Hungary, so it is no surprise that the very next sentence identifies those countries’ governments as the offenders (along with Turkey, India, and the Philippines). Poland and Hungary then regularly recur in the same context throughout the book. It is also no surprise that not a single example is given of this supposed “chipping away at democracy” in those countries, because as I have detailed elsewhere, all this is mere cant, a propagandistic way of stating that Poland and Hungary, where supermajorities of right-wing parties have been elected in totally free elections, aren’t leftist enough, which somehow is supposed to be “anti-democratic” in a way never specified. Part of the problem here is cognitive dissonance—Runciman wants to be a neutral observer of politics, and think he is a neutral observer, but his definitions and analysis always assume Left dominance as the only desirable state. Any regime that is voted into power that does not worship “liberal democracy,” which has over the past two decades morphed into shorthand for Left dominance, is magically and without analysis suddenly described as not a democracy at all. Since he can’t state openly why that is, Runciman just leaps to the conclusion without discussion, babbling a little along the way to distract the reader. The same mental confusion is shown by other delicate phrasing in the book, such as blaming the “miserable current fate” of Venezuela on, wait for it, “playing with the fire of populism.” Yeah, that’s it.

Still, Runciman’s basic analysis of a coup as an unlikely way for Western democracy to end is sound. He has interesting things to say about the 1890s in America as a parallel time, but points out that back then democracy had untapped potential and seemed young, and therefore resilient and appealing, whereas to many today, it seems sclerotic and largely useless in improving their lives, and thus “common cause is much harder to find than it once was.” It’s just that the result isn’t likely to be political violence, mostly due to ennui and affluence, a conclusion with which I mostly agree, although if the hard Left were to gain actual power in America, it seems likely that violence would result, since that is always the default approach of the Left when it has actual power, in order to reinforce and further that power. Buy more guns, is what I say!

Runciman next covers catastrophe, where the majority of the silliness in the book shows up. I’m sure it’s true that if a giant asteroid hits Kansas, democracy will suffer, as people scrabble for food among the ash clouds. But that’s not what he’s talking about here—he is mostly thinking of “environmental catastrophe,” repeatedly referring to Silent Spring and lecturing us that we are backsliding in unspecified ways from our commitment to environmental health. He adds an incoherent analogy to Hannah Arendt’s thoughts on the Holocaust. Oh, yes, Hiroshima gets thrown in too. Then, of course, he turns to climate change, correctly blaming democracy for the fact that nothing at all is being done about it, but incorrectly assuming an autocratic regime would do something about it, when in fact nothing but a global government would be likely to do anything about it, and then only if convinced future benefits outweigh current costs. He also correctly notes that if environmental disaster actually does come to pass, democracies are pretty good at doing something about it—but he doesn’t tell us why they are better at reacting than other forms of government, probably because they aren’t. Humans are just good at dealing with actual disasters and (probably rationally) not so good at taking high-cost actions now to prevent ambiguous-cost problems later. What Runciman seems to be groping at here, which is a bit clearer in his end-of-book summation, though not presented with any reasoning, is that (a) global warming will probably kill us all, so (b) it’s OK if democracy ends if it allows us to better deal with global warming. Finally, we get rambling about killer robots and nanotechnology, with the point seeming to be that democracy becomes less important when Skynet is hunting us down with Terminators, which is, I suppose, true.

The author’s third Destructor is “technological takeover,” which does not mean artificial intelligence (something Runciman accurately points out is always a mere twenty years away), but the erosion of democracy due to the Internet, abetted by the Lords of Tech. But Runciman isn’t very concerned; he believes that the state holds the whip hand, and platforms like Facebook gain their power, even at their maximum, not through coercion, but through connectivity, an inherently weaker form of influence. Still, Runciman fears, Facebook could undermine democracy if it were to “weaken the forces that keep modern democracy intact.” Yes, online interactions seem like pure democracy, but they lack the face-to-face element of the only earlier pure democracies, certain Greek city-states. Here, Runciman for the first time draws clearly the distinction between representative democracy and pure democracy, and points out that the former is threatened not so much by the Internet, but by the erosion of social bonds, including participation in party politics, which has been going on for a lot longer than the Internet. Still, the Internet exacerbates this process, not to mention that autocratic regimes can use technology to enhance their control in ways undreamed of in the past, with the active cooperation of Facebook, Twitter, and all the others to boot.

Finally, Runciman turns to possible alternatives to our current type of democracy. He name checks the Dark Enlightenment types such as Nick Land and Curtis Yarvin, with their inane ideas about turning government into a corporation. But the rest of his analysis is pretty good—he identifies that democracy offers, at its best, dignity and material benefits to the populace, and if it starts to fail in either, its attractiveness erodes. This is the simplest explanation of Trump’s rise—not that Trump is not democratic but that much of America believes it is spat upon by the professional-managerial elite who runs the country, and that they are not sharing in material benefits, which are accruing to the same people who spit on them. Such people will seek alternatives, ultimately. One possibility Runciman identifies is “pragmatic authoritarianism” in the Chinese mold. Weirdly, Runciman never gets around to telling us why this isn’t a viable and good idea; he just shifts gears suddenly to “epistocracy,” rule by the knowledgeable, or a related alternative, technocracy.

Now, epistocracy was well covered by a book I trashed, Jason Brennan’s 2016 "Against Democracy." I trashed it not because it’s a totally bad idea, inherently, but because Brennan’s proposals were risible. Even with sounder proposals, though, rule by the knowledgeable is always going to be mostly a bad idea, because the knowledgeable are the problem, not the solution, to most of our difficulties, and that has been true ever since the Enlightenment. Runciman recognizes this, indirectly, citing another political scientist, “The historical record leaves little doubt that the educated, including the highly educated, have gone wrong in their moral and political thinking as often as everyone else.” Runciman’s conclusion is that “History teaches us that epistocracy comes before democracy. It can’t come after.” I doubt that, and anyone who says “history teaches us” that something can never happen doesn’t read enough history. But perhaps he is right that technocracy, such as in the rule of central bankers, is a more likely turn away from democracy than epistocracy. Not that that’s a solution—as José Ortega y Gasset showed nearly a hundred years ago, rule by experts is a terrible form of government.

A much better form of government that is not democracy, and not epistocracy or technocracy, is rule by those with a stake in society. Traditionally, this means some form of mixed government with some, sharply restricted, popular participation. The Roman Republic is one example; another, quite different, one is the government of Venice, which lasted for many centuries. In our context, it would mean giving most of the power to an aristocracy that was actually virtuous (as opposed to our current aristocracy, though how to get from here to there I am unsure), and preventing anyone without a stake in society, or who is supported by society, from having any direct influence on the levers of power. Thus, any person who works for the government (other than, perhaps, combat-likely military or combat veterans), or who obtains any substantial benefits from the government (including Medicare or Social Security), would not be allowed to vote at all (though his interests might be represented by the equivalent of the Roman plebian tribunate). Any person with children who stood on his or her own two feet would be given substantial additional voting power, more for more children. Any person with illiquid property would also be given substantial additional voting power (those with liquid property less, and none unless the liquid property was legally constrained from leaving the country). Unfortunately, this is not something Runciman even mentions, much less pursues; his view of alternatives to democracy is very crimped, and includes no real examples drawn from history.

Runciman concludes his thoughts on alternatives to democracy with rambling about how technology may release us from the need to work, effectively creating a Nozickian state where each of us pursues his bliss, free to ignore democracy and, for that matter, able to ignore both political freedom and the state. In essence, as he admits, this is accelerationism, though he prefers the term “liberated technology.” He does not note it is beloved of Dark Enlightenment types, but at least he knows enough history to compare it to Italian Futurism. The less said about this the better, in my opinion. First, the state will never wither away unless it is first strangled; men desire power over others, and therefore a Nozickian state enabled by technology would never be permitted. And leaving that aside, even were the technology to arrive, which it won’t, and the state to permit its own erosion, which it won’t, the effect of accelerationism would be total destruction of society, since it would complete the atomization of all things, something anathema to human nature. No such society would continue for long, for man seeks transcendence. This would be the opposite, and the need for transcendence would reassert itself in ways most likely made much more unpleasant by the very technology that put the final nail in the coffin of democracy.

[Review finishes as first comment.]

[الهام مقدم راد · Rating 5 out of 5]

دیوید رانسیمن David Walter Runciman استاد برجسته و مدیر دپارتمان سیاست و روابط بین‌الملل دانشگاه کمبریج در آخرین کتاب خود با عنوان How Democracy End? که با عنوان «پایان دموکراسی» در ایران ترجمه و منتشر شده است، می‌خواهد به آن خطرات بالقوه‌ای که می‌تواند دموکراسی را به ضد خود تبدیل کند، نگاهی بیندازد. متن او با زبانی شفاف و با استفاده از مصادیق کنونی سیاست مستقر در جهان، مثل اقبال مردم به ترامپ و رأی مردم بریتانیا به برگزیت و پدیده‌ی اردوغان و ... نوشته شده است. این متفاوت است با کتاب دیگری در نقد دموکراسی به همین نام پایان دموکراسی که توسط ژان ماری گنو نوشته شده و عبدالحسین نیک گهر آن را به فارسی برگردانده است.

از نظر رانسیمن نظام‌هایی که دموکراسی را وعده می‌دهند، فقط حل مشکلات را پشت گوش می‌اندازند. واقعاً نمی‌دانیم که پشت این گوش چیست که گنجایش این همه بحران را دارد و نمی‌دانیم که تا کی این کار ادامه خواهد داشت؟

امروز حق شرکت در انتخابات دیگر کافی نیست، افراد به دنبال شأن و منزلتی هستند که به همراه به رسمیت شناختن کیستی‌شان می‌آید و می‌خواهند سهمی از منافع مادی دموکراسی هم داشته باشند. آن‌ها نمی‌خواهند که صدایشان فقط شنیده شود و پشت گوش انداخته شود، آن‌ها می‌خواهند که به سخنان آن‌ها توجه شود. انتخابات باعث می‌شود که همه با صبر و حوصله یا حداکثر کمی جنبش منتظر‌ بمانند و با مشکلات بی‌شمار دست و پنجه نرم کنند. کسی نمی‌داند که منتظر چیست. در واقع تغییر می‌خواهند ولی منتظر دگرگونی‌های بزر‌گ نیستند؛ اما بعد از مدتی انتظار به کار اصلی‌شان تبدیل می‌شود.

رانسیمن به دنبال توضیح‌دادنِ وضعیت نه چندان مطلوبی است که حتی دموکراسی‌های ثبات‌یافته‌ی غربی به آن مبتلا شده‌اند. خطراتی که از هر سو دموکراسی‌ها را به محاصره درآورده و مورد هجمه قرار داده است: هوچی‌گران پوپولیست، نظامیانی که می‌خواهند زودتر یونیفورم‌هایشان را آویزان کنند و پشت میز سیاست بنشینند، اقتدارگرایان، ملی‌گرایان، بنیادگرایان و انواع «گرایان» که در کمین فرصت برای کسب قدرت نشسته‌اند.

می‌توان پرسید با این حساب ما که گویا دیر زمانی است بعد از مشروطه سودای دموکراتیک شدن در سر می‌پرورانیم، از این کتاب چه طرفی می‌توانیم‌ ببندیم؟ راه‌حل ما دلبستگانِ ایرانی مانده در حسرتِ دموکراسی چیست؟ انتظار یک راه‌حل قطعی و بی‌نقص بیهوده و ناممکن است.

نویسنده هم هرگز داعیه‌ی ارائه‌ی راه‌حل ندارد؛ حتی به روشنی می‌گوید که بخشی از مشکل ما همانا «مشکل‌گشایان» هستند؛ یعنی کسانی که برای مشکلات فعلی راه حل‌های آسان دم‌دستی ارائه می‌دهند.

اما دنیا با سرعت زیادی در حال تغییر است، ما هم ناچاریم نیم‌نگاهی به سرنوشت ملل دیگر بیندازیم تا شاید چشم‌اندازی برای خود ببینیم. با مطالعه‌ی دقیق تجربه‌ی تاریخی و آزمون و خطی بشر در سیر طولانی حکومت‌ها چشم ما بر وضعیت کنونی و آینده احتمالی‌مان باز خواهد شد و بهتر می‌توانیم برای سرنوشت خود تصمیم بگیریم.

ما هنوز فرصتی برای دموکراسی قائلیم، منتظریم که ببینیم چطور از آب در خواهد آمد؛ اما در سوی دیگر بد نیست ببینیم که دموکراسی‌ها دارند باعث وقوع چیزهای کاملاً احمقانه‌ای می‌شوند.

برخلاف اسمی که برای کتاب در ترجمه‌ی فارسی انتخاب شده و مترجم توضیحی درباره‌اش نداده است، رانسیمن در این کتاب نمی‌خواهد از پایان دموکراسی دفاع کند یا حتی ادعا کند که عصر دموکراسی به پایان آمده است. هدف او بیشتر پرداختن به تهدیدهایی است که می‌تواند دموکراسی را زودتر به پایان برساند و پرداختن به این‌که اگر پایانی در کار باشد می‌توان چیز بهتری جای آن گذاشت؟ گویی دموکراسی به سنین میانسالی و فرسودگی خود رسیده باشد و ممکن است در مقابله با تمایلات اقتدارگرایانه، فاجعه‌های زیست‌محیطی، چیرگی پرشتاب فناوری و کودتای نظامیان و ... تاب نیاورد. مثلاً بعید نیست دیکتاتوری آهسته درونِ نهادهای آن بخزد و جا خوش کند، طوری که دیگر نتوان از دستش خلاص شد؛ یا فناوری دنیای مجازی که ادعا می‌کند صدای بی‌صدایان شده است قدرت لفاظان و هوچی‌گران را هم افزایش دهد یا سیاست دموکراتیک را به هوش مصنوعی ماشین‌‌ها بسپارد و سلطه‌‌ی غیرانسان به انسان را محقق کند.

به این ترتیب در روند دموکراتیک شدن مشکلات بسیاری حل شده‌اند ولی مشکلات دیگری خودشان را نشان داده‌اند. هنوز هم سیاست‌مداران دموکراسی را تا جایی خوب می‌دانند که خودشان پیروز انتخابات باشند، یعنی رقیبان مشروعیتی برای کسب قدرت ندارند و ادعا می‌کنند تنها خودشان صدای صادقانه‌ی مردم هستند. هنوز مردم به آسانی جذب کسانی می‌شوند که علاوه بر دموکراسی، وعده‌های شیرین هم می‌دهند و مدام نظرشان را تغییر می‌دهند.

رأی‌دهی و انتخابات مردم را آگاه‌تر نمی‌کند و اگر تغییری در آن‌ها به وجود آورد این است که آن‌ها را احمق‌تر می‌کند، چرا که دموکراسی به پیش‌داوری‌ها و نادانی‌های مردم به نا�� دموکراسی، شأن و منزلت می‌بخشد. بعضی از اشکال برگزاری انتخابات دموکراسی را از درون متزلزل کرده و تخریب می‌کند. مشکل دموکراسی این است که تواناییِ اقناع خوبی دارد، در حالی که درون آن، هیچ دلیلی برای آگاه‌تر شدن نداریم. چشم‌بسته به سمت دموکراسی رفتن به ما می‌گوید همین راهی که می‌رویم، خیلی خوبیم، در حالی که ممکن است چنین نباشد. دموکراسی هنوز هم به خوبی از پس پنهان کردن فرسایش تدریجی خود بر می‌آید.

کتاب رانسیمن را خوبست بخوانیم؛ چون برای درک موقعیت فعلی‌مان به آگاهی از جایی که ایستاده‌ایم نیاز داریم؛ مبادا برای برقراری چیزی که در حال از هم گسیختن است، هزینه‌ی بیش از حد بپردازیم و خودمان را به نابودی بکشانیم. البته که آگاهی از پشتِ پرده‌ی دموکراسی انتخاباتی کافی نیست. اصلاً یک نقد مهم به بدنه‌ی روشنفکری ما شاید این باشد که اغلب بر این باور بوده‌اند که آگاه شدن همان و عملی شدن هم همان. بیشتر اوقات بیش از اندازه تکیه کردن به آگاهی و آگاه کردن مردم، باعث غفلت آنان از ساختارها و موقعیت‌ها و زمینه‌ها شده است. در فهم از دگرگونی‌های اجتماعی و سیاسی نمی‌توان فقط به ساحتِ فکر اصالت داد، باید دید در عمل به نامِ آن فکر چه اتفاقی می‌افتد؟

پس این‌طور نیست که راه بیفتیم و فقط دم از دموکراسی بزنیم و به فرهنگ مردم بچسبیم، به امید این‌که دیگر پیامدهای مطلوب اجتماعی و سیاسی هم یکی‌یکی از راه خواهند رسید. از دموکراسی نمی‌توان و نباید ایدئولوژی ساخت. همین دموکراسی در اجرا پیچیدگی‌ها و تناقض‌های فراوانی دارد؛ اما کمتر می‌توان سیاست‌مدار و روشنفکر ایرانی را یافت که به هر شکلی توصیه و نظریه‌پردازی نکند یا نخواهد ایران را دموکراتیک کند. شاید حالا زمان خوبی باشد برای این که به جای تکرار طوطی‌وار مزایای دموکراسی از خودمان بپرسیم چرا این‌جا دموکراسی این همه سال مطرح شده و روی کاغذ و نوک زبان‌ها باقی مانده و تأثیر سیاسی نداشته است؟ یا امروز دموکراسی‌های باثباتِ دنیا با چه گرفتاری‌هایی مواجه‌اند که ممکن است ما هم دموکراسی را نچشیده به آن‌ها مبتلا شویم و فقط هزینه بدهیم؟ یا مردم از دموکراسی چه می‌خواهند و به چه قیمتی؟ این همان‌جایی است که می‌توان لاک نظریه را موقتاً ترک کرد و به صورت انضمامی به جایگزین‌های عملی و کنش‌گرانه هم فکر کرد.

دموکراسی‌ها تنها در یک چیز خوب عمل می‌کنند و آن عقب‌راندن روز موعود است. پشت گوش دموکراسی ظاهراً فراخ‌تر از آن است که ما فکر می‌کنیم.

[Joshua · Rating 2 out of 5]

There is some not terrible political analysis and prognostication in this book. The author is a well-read political scientist and a decent writer who has some compelling points to make. My problem is with the core set of assumptions that the author seems to be working from, a few of which are: 1) Western democratic states have up until recently been vibrant, efficacious, or at least adequately meeting the needs of their citizens; 2) history is the story of state actors and state-level actions with no need to mention actual people as part of the story; and 3) that the best of democracy comes out when responding to extreme challenges like war and economic disasters. In my opinion the author is too entrenched in the assumptions inherent in the world of academic political science to realize that democracy, in any of its current or historical forms, has never adequately met the needs of its citizens, that history is a story of people, and that the worst of democracy comes out when faced with war and economic disasters.

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have been reading deeply on this subject since the dismal events of 2016: Brexit and Trump’s election.

Accordingly, there is very little new that Professor Runciman added to my knowledge of the very real and great challenges of our time. However, for someone just beginning to investigate the difficulties democracy is having, or for better understanding the threats posed by such demagogue/strongmen represented by Trump, this would be an excellent place to start.

Runciman writes fluidly and lucidly and, while focusing primarily on the United States at the present time, capably covers both some historical material and current developments in other states in Europe, too.

For what it is worth, my own understanding of “democracy” — especially for describing the kind of functioning governing that takes place at the national or federal level of today’s large nation-states — is that it offers citizens a regular opportunity to declare their opinion on whether or not to “throw the bums out.” If a politician, or his/her party, enjoys their favor, then they will continue to vote for them; if not, they cast a “negative” by voting for the other person on the ticket.

Increasingly, however, it does NOT mean that ordinary citizens have much, if any, input into which policies advance or defeated. That role has been subsumed by those who wield vast amounts of money and who have employed armies of lobbyists — at both the federal and state levels — to ensure that their voice is heard above all.

As Dr. Runciman ably points out, this is working less well in recent decades because of the way modern governments have been captured by a a mindset that really does not allow for much input from us “regular folks.” Since the 1970s, in the US and across the West, government policy has been favorably towards the already wealthy and their allied corporate — and, increasingly, ideological — supporters. With tribalism increasing everywhere, and since the major parties — especially in the US — have used gerrymandering and voter suppression to increase their chance of surviving electoral challenges, there is really very little that is new that has a chance of entering the political discussion. Remarkably, even though polls in the US and throughout the West show continued majorities supporting unions, adequate and affordable health care, and a strong safety net for the ailing, disabled and retired, modern governments have favored austerity measures AND tax cuts favoring the rich even as these drain the very governmental coffers necessary to fund the benefits most people want.

The current nationalist/populist insurgency taking place throughout the West is a result of these policies, but it has been channeled — so far very successfully — by the Right to not address the ECONOMIC sources of their plight but, rather, to focus on, and heighten fear of, modern bogeymen: immigrants, people of color, and ominous “dissenters.”

This is a poisonous brew!

Runciman comments: “The more democracy is taken for granted [my insertion: not tended to], the more chance there is to subvert it without having to overthrow it. In particular... elected strongmen chip[ping] away at democracy while paying lip service to it ...looks like being the biggest threat to democracy in the twenty-first century....

“If democracy is to be subverted, the it is essential that the people as a whole remain bystanders....

“Democratic politics has become an elaborate show, needed ever more characterful performers to hold the public’s attention. The increasing reliance on referendums in many democracies fits this pattern. A referendum looks democratic but it is not. The spectators get dragged on stage to say a simple yes or not to a proposition they have played no part in devising. Then the politicians get back to the business of deciding what they meant by what they said, while the voters look on, many of them growing frustrated at not having a chance to play a further part.”

He mentions that “The legal scholar Bruch Ackerman has characterized the last fifty years of American presidential politics as a series of power-grabs by the executive.” He then goes on to note that “The problem is that once democratic politics has been subject to executive aggrandizement, to refuse to assent is to risk being tarred as an enemy of democracy.”

He observes that Hannah Arendt “argued that twentieth-century democracy had a form of mindlessness built into it. The creation of modern democracy required the construction of a large administrative apparatus that operates mechanically, according to its own rules and regulations. In this system, technical expertise gets prioritized over human values...The great danger of modern democracy is that it gets detached from meaningful human in put and acquires an artificial life of its own. Human beings still make the key decisions, but they do so without creative insight. They go through the motions” which, Arendt observed, “opens the door to our most destructive impulses. We stop thinking for ourselves.”

This book does not offer specific solutions; but, in helping us get a better understanding our plight, it prepares us to take more meaningful steps to restores, thereby saving, our republics.

[Jorgon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short, but stimulating. The first three chapters describe possible ways in which democratic regimes can expire: (military) coups, catastrophes (from natural to nuclear) and technological advances. The last, and the most interesting chapter, examines several possible alternatives to democracy, rejecting two (pragmatic authoritarianism and epistocracy) and cautiously endorsing some form of technological accelerationism/adhocracy. Does not spare neither Trump nor blinkered liberalism that has contributed to the rise of the latest authoritarian movements.

[Guilherme Smee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Neste livro David Runciman traz três fatos que poderiam acabar com uma democracia ou até mesmo com A democracia. São eles: 1)o golpe de Estado, 2)uma catástrofe de nível nacional ou mundial, ou 3) a ação das redes sociais insuflando na população a vontade de tomar medidas antidemocráticas. No Brasil atual vimos as três teses se concretizarem em um curto espaço de tempo, mas a democracia se manteve, até onde se sabe, resistente. Este livro é de 2016 e traz um comparativo apenas sobre os EUA de Trump, elencando o Brasil como um país "seguro". Dando continuidade ao seu pensamento, Runciman lança mão de outra tese: a de que a democracia só tem sido ameaçada e se enfraquecido porque não temos mais guerras para que nossa violência latente seja exercida de forma a aplacar esse instindo primordial da humanidade, que um governo direcionado contra um inimigo comum debelaria. Essa tese é consoante com a teoria mimética e do bode expiatório de René Girard, que já resenhei aqui. O livro Como a Democracia Chega ao Fim ilumina bastante sobre o estado atual dos governos escolhidos pelo povo e suas fraquezas. O autor também apresenta algumas soluções para tal dilema e os desafios que se encontram à frente das nações terrestres. Chega até a criar um epílogo em forma de ficção cinetífica contando como, em 2053, se comportarão os governos do planeta, liderados por corporações de redes sociais. Embora eu discorde do autor em diversos pontos, acredito que este é um bom livro pra repensarmos as formas como estamos sendo governados e direcionados em democracias precárias e tentar entender o que está acontecendo no Brasil.

[Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

How democracy ends.

Spoiler: Lots of ways, but it’s probably ok for now.

There’s were quite a few of these kinds of books being released during the Trump presidency, and the author here is quite frank about being prompted by the Trump (and note that it was written before the January 6th insurrection), but this book is a good discussion of the various ways in which democracies have ended and a warning that we might be so busy looking for the symptoms that we’ve witnessed in the past that we could be missing the warning signs our democracy may be in trouble. There are new threats that democracy has never grappled with, such as the explosion of technology and information warfare and a changing climate.

This is very interesting and readable, a great introduction to the subject from the professor teaching politics at Cambridge University.

[Charlotte Dunn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Until professors stop recommending their own books I will continue to pirate them online.

[Slow Reader · Rating 1 out of 5]

I will save you the time. You will find nothing that adds value or understanding to your life in this book. In fact, it will needlessly depress you, there is enough of that around without this guy adding to it. It will make you feel helpless in front of large forces shaping the World. Political hope and optimism are rare qualities that shouldn't easily be given up. If that is lost you're are as good as dead. You become a zombie who just goes through life. It's this outlook that Runciman seems to have adopted, but you the reader don't have to. Stop reading books about Democracy's demise, dysfunctions and what not, and get politically active. A bit of political naivete and innocence, even ignorance, aren't bad per se. That's how progress happens. Facts, logic and reason, taken to an extreme, kill the human spirit, thus leaving any revolutionary possibilities for initiative and action in the political space, nullified.

The author is an intellectually bankrupt member of the upper classes. He can be easily mistaken to be a member of the left or a proponent of liberalism(in the best sense of the word). Take a look at his family tree in Wikipedia. He comes from a deeply elitist background. From such minds don't come groundbreaking ideas or original thought, that challenges power or shows new paths to improve society. He refuses to make a systematic critique of capitalism(he says, we shouldn't do anything that disturbs it too much), he finds the milquetoast socialist Jeremy Corbyn distasteful, about whom he makes a lot of snide remarks, whenever he gets a chance. He wrote an obsequious essay that seemed to critique Hayek(that rightwing ideologue, whose shitty ideas helped shape the neoliberal hellhole, we all suffer under), but in unnecessarily respectful, apologetic and sympathetic language, without seriously pointing out how deeply damaging Hayek's 'ideas' have been. His Brexit analysis has no mention of the role that Thatcherism played in it, which he, on the whole, thinks made the UK a prosperous and healthy democracy. I have read all of Runciman's recent articles and interviews, viewed his youtube videos, listened to his podcast, so you don't have to. People like him keep producing stuff to pad up their resumes, improve their profile and get better salaries. They don't care about helping you, dear reader, to make sense of the world and to take any kind of action. They lead lives that are too comfortable to disturb the intellectual status quo. All of his arguments and examples sound like conundrums for which there are no apparent solutions. This just debilitates the mind and makes one's actions feel hopeless and meaningless.

The guy and his works are inoffensive enough at first sight, but the sting is in the tail. Don't bother reading the book.

[iulia Lambrino · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although it took me a while to finish this book, I very much enjoyed the arguments that were presented and the debate that can arise from these. David Runciman divided the main body of the book in four important chapters that embody the past, the present and the future. He implies that, as everything in the world, democracy too will come to an end eventually->the exact moment is uncertain however. Moreover, he underlines the importance of how we perceive "the end", stating that democracy will only truly vanish once the human existence has vanished as well. Even though it might not be the same as we have today, some principles of democracy will still remain significant in future politics.
Therefore, I would recommend this read for those who want to embark on significant debates that could shape the future and to discover new but very realistic perspectives, through the great writing that this book promotes.

[Blaine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Got as far as 55% and decided not worth finishing. Nothing particularly enlightening if you've kept up with reasonably reliable news sources and commentary over the past 5 years.

Addendum: I ended up skimming through the rest of the book. There were no startling insights in the last three chapters either.

[Alberto Illán Oviedo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Creo que el principal problema de un libro que está escrito con un motivo muy concreto de actualidad es que nace con fecha de caducidad. Cuando la razón de su existencia perece, deja al aire sus defectos y carencias, más que sus aciertos, si es que los ha tenido.

‘Así termina la democracia’ de David Runciman (sobrino nieto del historiador Steven Runciman) nació como un libro que venía a avisarnos de que la llegada a la presidencia de Donald Trump era uno de los signos de la lenta decadencia y posible desaparición de la democracia, asignando de forma directa o indirecta a Trump aquellos vicios y actitudes que son signos de su enfermedad. Este libro fue publicado cuando el presidente americano no llevaba ni la mitad de su mandato, así que casi todos los avisos de desastre han quedado superados por posteriores acontecimientos, lo que hace que sus conclusiones sean como poco discutibles.

El segundo fallo que le veo es que en ningún momento explica lo que entiende por democracia. Runciman se centra en la expresión de los ciudadanos y la sociedad civil, ya sea en forma de voto o en la libre expresión de sus ideas, críticas, juicios y opiniones, pero no entra en otros pilares fundamentales como son la separación de poderes o el estado de derecho. Esta carencia le hace cojear, desde mi punto de vista, en el análisis.

El tercer fallo es la habitual sobreactuación que tienen las tecnologías en el análisis político y social. En este caso, asigna a las corporaciones tecnológicas el mismo papel que tenían las corporaciones del petróleo en el siglo XX (que es discutible, pero que tiene sentido) y a las redes sociales una realidad mucho más compleja de lo que creo que son, confundiendo la parte con el todo. Facebook, X (antes Twitter), TikTok, Instagram, por muy importantes que puedan parecer no dejan de ser canales que usan una parte de la humanidad y para fines muy concretos. Las redes sociales no son la vida. Me resulta difícil entender como comunidades políticas a grupos de personas (y algún que otro bot) que sueltan en estas redes sociales sus ideas, exageraciones o frustraciones, buscando ‘likes’ porque en su vida habitual no tienen esa aceptación.

Sin embargo, el libro, dentro de sus carencias, también tiene aciertos. Creo que algunos de los análisis son certeros y se hacen las preguntas correctas, lo que invita a la reflexión sobre estos asuntos y algunos que ignora o trata levemente. También dedica uno de los capítulos a analizar algunas de las alternativas a la democracia, lo que también invita a la reflexión ya que algunas de estas alternativas están basadas en las limitaciones de las virtudes de la democracia.

[Andreas Haraldstad · Rating 3 out of 5]

Runciman's main argument is that democracy is hitting its "middle age". In his view, democracy, in long established/consolidated democratic states, has reached a sort of malaise where it is too weak to solve the existential problems of the twentyfirst century (here, he points at looming environmental and technological disasters). Yet, at the same time, it is too well-established, too much praised to be replaced or wither away. The result is that it trundles along, without never really pleasing anyone: old, bureaucratic, toothless and incremental - the real end of history.

As opposed to most of the other books in this genre, Runciman provides no solutions, rather his book can be seen as a reassurance to all those who think that democracy will end with a bang. It won't. Rather, Runciman sees a future very much like our own as democracy trundles along, never really pleasing anyone, but at the same time, not offending anyone so much that a new system seems necessary (and as he points out, it is not necessarily apparent that such a system exists).

An interesting and well written read. Runciman is a bit repetitive, but his prose is both enjoyable and easy to digest. I recommend this book to everyone interested in reading about the state of democratic society and its possible futures

However, I cannot but wonder. Do all these books discussing the threats to liberal democracy actually cause the problem they try to put focus on? This is somewhat of a constructivist take, but I wonder whether talking about democacy's "demise" and "tiredness" and "vulnerability" actually help cause the phenomenon the discourse tries to solve?

[James Hodgson · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first part of this book is an excellent summary of some of the circumstances under which democratic regimes can end, especially the history of military coups. It then goes on to discuss various crises than can afflict democracy by making it seem redundant (e.g., nuclear war, ecological disasters).

In the second part, unfortunately, Runciman indulges in his preoccupation with technology and the internet (Talking Politics listeners will be familiar with this). It's not really clear --to me, at least-- that this has much to do with the fate of democracy, and reads like a catalogue of the delusions of various Silicon Valley tycoons and bloggers.

Runciman has an engaging writing style, but after a while I found it a bit smug and self-regarding. He knows how to turn a phrase, but too often his style becomes a distraction rather than a means to convey an analysis. He makes much of democracy's "mid-life crisis" as a helpful analogy; but this is an analogy, not an argument.

In sum, it was an interesting read, but a bit disappointing. Runciman is at his strongest when he is dealing with intellectual history and at his weakest as a guide to contemporary politics, where he seems as just as easily bewildered and distracted by ephemera as many other people.

[Henry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Better than all of the other political science books trying to cash in on Trump, mostly because Runciman is clearly not very interested in Trump himself or even our exact moment. The clarity he brings to complex political philosophy is refreshing, as is his focus on a wider timescale than we usually have these discussions on. The wider thesis of democracy in a mid-life crisis, its best years well behind it but with many more to come, is compelling but of course utterly impossible to prove.

[Matilda Manning · Rating 4 out of 5]

A refreshing commentary on the state of current political and social affairs. Runciman writes accessibly and uses mainstream discussions to assemble a broad argument and whilst his points can and should be contested and criticised, as with any politically driven conversation, he opens up many brilliant and varied discussions. Overall would recommend for anyone who is interested in shifts in our society, particularly in the rising influence of tech giants.

[Nancy Speisser]

This is an excellent book for anyone concerned about the current political situation in the United States. Runciman provides great insight to what is happening, why it is happening, and, hopefully, what can be done to preserve the democracy. With examples of other countries that have lost the right to a democratic government, Runciman tells us what is happening in the U.S. and the implications.

[Hannah · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is making me doubt my taste because John Gray calls it 'one of the most luminously intelligent books on politics in many years' , and I love John Gray, but I really could not get on board with this. It just seemed to be a lot of metaphors (e.g. democracy is having it's midlife crisis) without any examples or rigour or ideas .Frankly I was bored, flicking through pages trying to find anything illuminating. It is a book with some quotable ideas, but I don't get the sense that it is the result of a great deal of observation and rumination.

NOTES
P.31 No democracy has reverted to military rule once GDP is greater than $8000 per person.
p.42 French soldiers in Algeria tried to overthrow General de Gaulle, feared that de Gaulle would grant Algeria independence.
p.43 As democracy gets stronger, the possibility of a coup should start to sound more and more like a joke.
p.46 Bermeo notes that a big problem with incremental coups is knowing how to oppose them. Democracies that 'erode rather than shatter often lack the spark that ignites an effective call to action.' There is no single moment to rally the forces of democracy against the threat that confronts it. Instead, political infighting produces a series of disjointed confrontations that each side sees differently: while the opponents of the regime shout, 'Coup!' its defenders say that those accusations are hyperbole and hysteria.
p.47 A referendum looks democratic but it is not. The spectators get dragged on stage to say a simple yes or no to a proposition that they have played no part in devising. Then the politicians get back to the business of deciding what they meant by what they said, while the voters look on, many of them growing frustrated at not having a chance to play a further part. If necessary, another referendum can be called to get them to agree to whatever it was they were taken to have decided the first time round.
p.54 The legal scholar Bruce Ackerman has characterised the last fifty years of American presidential politics as a series of power grabs by the executive. The biggest involves the politicisation of the military, which has been increasingly coopted by the executive. The biggest involves the politicisation of the military, which has been increasingly coopted into executive rule. Faced with a recalcitrant congress, presidents turn to soldiers to get things done. Ackerman sees two dangers. One is that a subservient high command might greatly expand the powers of an extremist presidency by doing what it is told. The other is that the president ends up doing what he is told by his generals, who have become an indispensable part of his administration.
p.56 In the dying days of the Nixon presidency in the summer of 1974 the Secretary of Defence James Schlesinger became so alarmed by the president's state of mind - Nixon was seriously depressed and drinking heavily - that he instructed the military not to act on presidential orders, especially with regard to nuclear weapons, unless first cleared by either himself or Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. He also drew up plans to deploy troops in Washington in the event that it was not possible to arrange a peaceful presidential transition.
p.56-7 Whereas a successful coup once required that everyone should know what was going on (e.g. 1960s Greece), now both a coup and a counter coup require that as few people understand what is happening as possible.
p.57 When accusations of conspiracy are everywhere, the space to hide a true conspiracy expands, because no one can see the forest for the trees.

p.70 In the US, Theodore Roosevelt embarked on his trust busting campaigns, which used the power of the federal government to break up the big monopolies in oil, steel and banking. He believed that progressive reform was the only thing that could hold democracy together in the face of populist fury. In France, socialist joined the government for the first time and steps were taken towards the creation of a modern welfare state. In Britain, which had also felt intimations of the populist threat, the modern Labour Party emerged as a political force. In the places where democracy has laid down roots, it emerged strengthened by populist crisis.

p.77 The real difficulty is that it is hard to know how to tackle the causes of populism in the absence of collective encounters with violence. We do not have a historical answer to the question of how to tackle inequality that does not involve large scale violence. There is no evidence that democracy alone can do it. The ancient historian Walter Scheidel argues in his 2017 book The Great Leveler that no society in human history has managed to redress rising inequality without intervention of large scale violence. War, violent revolution, natural disaster, epidemic and plague are all sufficient.

p.79 In democracy we now have a political system that can suppress the causes of violence without being able to address the problems that outbreaks of violence served to resolve in the past.

p.90 On how divided congress is now compared to in the 1970s- in the 70s Nixon passed the Clean Air Act in the Senate by a vote of 73-0.

P.93 As Arendt implies, modern politics makes it possible to be in a manic state and to be in a trance at the same time.

p.105 Nick Bostrom, philosopher based at Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute, sees ordinary risk management as ineffective when it comes to the life threatening technologies of the 21st century. Concerned by super intelligent AI. Democracy has value, but it is not the priority. Poor system for managing catastrophic risk because possibility so minute that voters will not take it into account when voting.

p.113 This read of interconnectedness has been around for a long time. In his short story 'The Machine stops', written more than one hundred years ago, E.M.Forster conjured up a dystopia fir for the twenty first century. Forster describes the sterile existence of isolated individuals in a networked world of the future, which is brought to an end when the mechanism on which they all depend ceases to function. These people can only communicate with each other via a form of instant messaging. They have little to share but their fantasies. Their pleasures come at the touch of a button. They have no true experiences of their own. The failure of 'the machine' that rules their life is death and it is liberation. Forster believed that human beings should 'only connect' not interconnect. The terrible danger of everything being connected to everything else is the loss of any sense of perspective.

pp.118 On no longer having a stake in democracy. 'We do not walk the tightrope. .. Democratic politics still has its reckless side. We elect politicians who promise to shake things up because the show has come to mean little to us. It has turned into a sterile and artificial performance. Trump is no joyful, high wire artist. He is a sleepwalker and a gambler, unconcerned by watching others fall. To wish to put him on the wire is to believe one of two things: either there is a safety net. Or the whole performance is a sham.

Hobbes Leviathan has a human face - the democratic process humanises an increasingly inhuman and artificial world.

Jack Dorsey = Head of Twitter
Benthan Panopticon- not Foucault?

[Pravar · Rating 4 out of 5]

An accessible and informative book on the current health of democracy, with a primary focus on the US and Western Europe. Much of the discussion on coups proves interesting for the reader in early 2021, and the discussion of contemporary alternatives to democracy adds nuance that is only usually available in academic literature.

[Annikky · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s a good one, but mostly familiar territory, if you have read other books on the topic. In the end, I preferred the Levitsky-Ziblatt one, although as Runciman says, the two books complement each other.

[Todd Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many forms of government have been tried and will be tried in tis world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
- Winston Churchill

If you’ve been paying even cursory attention to the news of the last few years (or decades) you’ll likely have come to the conclusion that democracy isn’t working very well.
1. It doesn’t respond to those issues that the public supports (72% want to expand social security, 70% want Medicare for all, 97% support universal background checks before purchasing a firearm).
2. It seems incapable of responding to existential threats (there has been no meaningful action to alleviate climate change).
3. It delivers things that people don’t want (partisan gerrymandering - 63% disapprove, oligarchy - 77% think there should be limits on the amount of money individuals and groups can give to campaigns).

Partisanship and gridlock have become the norm. A 2010 Pew poll asked people to provide the one word that best describes their current impressions of Congress and the top-10 most frequently used terms were: dysfunctional, corrupt, self-serving, inept, confused, incompetent, ineffective, lazy, bad, and sucks. Although nearly a decade has passed since this poll took place, one suspects that perceptions have changed very little.

This naturally leads one to ask … is democracy failing? There are certainly some dictators who believe so. In June of 2019 Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that Western Liberalism has “become obsolete” (as a reminder … liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on liberty, consent of the governed, and equality before the law). Of course his solution to this crisis would be the imposition of tyranny, and there’s likely an individual receptive of this approach currently sitting in the oval office. The public also senses that democracy isn’t serving their needs and has responded positively in recent years to populist rhetoric.

In How Democracy Ends David Runciman, Head of the Department of Politics and International Studies at Cambridge University, examines how democracies fail and the alternatives that exist if it were to be replaced.

If you’re looking for the Cliff Notes version – here’s his key point … most people look to the past to answer this question and naturally draw analogies from Europe in the 1930’s and the rise of fascism. It makes sense right? The U.S. has elected an authoritarian, nativist who derives his support from demonizing the ‘other’ (he’s even revived the ‘America First’ slogan first popularized in the 1920s). It’s easy to envision that the next phase of his rule being marked by tanks rolling through the streets and jack booted thugs arresting political opponents. Runciman thinks this is unlikely and that the question of ‘how democracy ends’ is a question about the future, not about the past.

Runciman then examines three failure points he considers more likely: coup, catastrophe and technological takeover.

Coup:
The military is unlikely to overthrow the government and impose martial law in the U.S. The real risk to democracy is of being subverted from within. There are several ways this can occur, some of which are well underway:
• Election-day Vote Fraud – When the election process is fixed to produce a particular result (some smoke, but no proof of this has yet emerged).
• Executive Aggrandizement – When those already in power chip away at democratic institutions without ever overturning them (refusal to obey subpoenas, human rights violations, militarization of the police, failure of the courts to provide due process).
• Strategic Election Manipulation – When elections fall short of being free and fair but also fall short of being stolen outright (gerrymandering, voter suppression).

No coup can succeed if the public rises up against it. But the brilliance of the strategies above is that they hide behind the workings of democracy, taking advantage of the public’s innate passivity. The coup succeeds because no one knows that it has happened.

Catastrophe:
This is perhaps the least surprising of the three … democratic institutions can fail when there is a disaster, whether natural or man-made. The worst effects of climate change, which would result in the displacement of millions living along the coasts, could certainly stress our system of governance to the breaking point. A stray meteor, nuclear war, or gamma ray burst could also have devastating effects on the planet and its inhabitants resulting in, among other things, a breakdown in governance.

Technological Takeover:
This one struck me as considerably more speculative than the others, but the basic idea is that technology could advance to the point that democracy becomes irrelevant. For example, if the singularity arrives and an advanced artificial general intelligence were created … we may turn over decision-making powers to a computer because it produces better results. A less extreme version of this scenario can be seen in the influence that social media sites had on the last election by spreading misinformation.

While Runciman agrees with Churchill’s sentiment above (democracy being the best of the worst), he is not optimistic about the current state of affairs. History shows that democracy can thrive when it is young, vibrant and strong, but that as it ages it weakens and ossifies. He writes, ”Contemporary representative democracy is tired, vindictive, paranoid, self-deceiving, clumsy and frequently ineffectual. Much of the time it is living on past glories. This sorry state of affairs reflects what we have become.”

Can it be fixed? Runciman doesn’t believe so, but he doesn’t think it’s going anywhere either. Politicians will continue to run on a platform of change, even as their ability to affect actual change becomes increasingly negligible. Runciman predicts that our representative form of democracy will continue to putter along for many years, becoming ever more ineffective and irrelevant with time.

When democracy eventually does fail, something else will follow. What this might be though, nobody knows. Probabilistically, there are many more ways to get it wrong than to get it right. Those with a proclivity for playing the odds might therefore reasonably conclude that democracy’s replacement, though adopted with the best of intentions, will not be the improvement one may have hoped for.

[Omar Ali Basha · Rating 3 out of 5]

فشل الديمقراطية في هذا العالم يعزي اليها صعود القوى اليمينية والدكتاتورية العسكرية في الشرق والدول الفاشلة ايضا، اضافة الى انتخاب دونالد ترامب وخروج بريطانيا من الاتحاد الاوروبي، وكذلك استحواذ الشركات الكبيرة بالاقتصاد والتدخل السافر للانتخابات وذلك بتوجيه الناخب من خلال موقعه في سوشيال ميديا. كل هذه الحقائق يؤكد الكاتب ان الديمقراطية تدخل في اخطر مرحلتها، وان النظام الديمقراطي كغيره من الانظمة السياسية تصعد وتختفي من حين لاخر. والكتاب رغم انه استشرافي الا انه يعبر عن مشاكل حقيقية في واقعنا، مشكلة البيئة وقدرات التدميرية لتلك الدول التي تمتلك الاسلحة النووية، كل هذه المشاكل تجعلنا نتساؤل هل لازالت الديمقراطية قادرة على ايجاد حلا لتلك المشاكل؟

[Gabor Seprenyi · Rating 3 out of 5]

After a good start and intriguing first chapter the book falls flat. I think the author had a good starting idea, but not enough munition to write a whole book. Interesting to read about how democracy is killed in modern times (the theater stays, there are elections, but sham, there are institutions but no longer able to fulfill their original role and mission), how coups changed in nature etc. But the author's obsession with Trump and climate change really deteriorates the whole book.

[Lucy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I disagree with a large part of Runciman’s argument. He seems to believe that until the 1980s the struggle for equal democratic rights was all that made democracy positive, and now that “has been achieved” there is no selling point left. When confronted with the fact that many groups are still fighting for basic rights/recognition he calls this “identity politics”, which is likely to lead to anarchy.

It is unfortunate that a man who recognised his white male privilege in the opening pages of the book seemed to forget about it as the book went on.

However, Runciman does offer several intriguing lines of enquiry as to where democracy is weakest and where it is strongest. An interesting book, but not one I will base a lot of my future reading on.

[Alexander Draganov · Rating 4 out of 5]

Малко съм щедър с оценката, но авторът е професор, а аз докторант. Интересен анализ за това, което Рънсиман определя като "криза на средната възраст" на демокрацията с малко прогностика и дори фантастика примесени вътре. Подходяща и за неспециалисти, но това като че ли е нормално за западните политолози.

[Zahra Achiii · Rating 3 out of 5]

در حدی علم ندارم که راجع به ��قاید نویسنده نظر بدم
اما حسن کتاب به این بود که مجبور شم کلی چیزی سرچ کنم و کلی چیزی یاد بگیرم . درباره دموکراسی درهای جدیدی برای من باز شد

[Becky · Rating 5 out of 5]

With a "y" stoopid

[Kevin Tole · Rating 3 out of 5]

When you’ve ploughed through 256 pages of a rather serious book with major implications and which expounds a ‘world-future’ view which might impact civilisation, then pick up a novel and the first paragraph appears to encapsulate the whole of the 'serious' book, you begin to wonder why you bothered. This from J.G. Ballard's Introduction to 'Myths of the Near Future' published in 1994.

As the year 2000 approaches, releasing a rush of millennial hopes and fears, I take for granted that the future will once again play a dominant role in our lives. Sadly, at some point in the 1960’s our sense of future seemed to atrophy and die. Over-population and the threat of nuclear war, environmentalist concerns for our ravaged planet and unease at an increasingly wayward science together made everyone fearful of the future. Like passengers on a ship blown towards a rocky coast, we retreated to our cabins and drew the curtains over the portholes.

David Runciman also appears to have reached a Ballardian nexus at sometime before 2018, with enough concern to write How Democracy Ends. The two big events which appear to have prompted this concern on his part were the election of Trump to the presidency of the United States in December 2016, and the decision of the British electorate at the referendum in June 2016 to vote for Brexit and the exit of the UK from the European Community. Both could be seen as huge slaps in the face for the middle class liberal intellectuals who failed to foresee either events.

It is important to know where David Runciman comes from before looking at the book and its contents. Runciman is the son of a viscount, who was also a political scientist. He is an Old Etonian, as were his forebears, studied at Cambridge as did his forebears, and is now Professor of Politics and International Studies at Trinity College Cambridge. He is also a senior reviewer and writer for the London Review of Books. One might even go so far as to say that David Runciman is a fine upstanding member of the liberal Establishment of Academia, a toff and a member of the privileged class.

My problem with this book is that there is so much which seems to be almost entirely from the ‘Gospel According to the Liberal Establishment’ as given unto and directed from the mouth of David Runciman. This book could do with a decent bibliography, and detailed notations of source. The issues within the covers are serious and any conclusions reached need to be based upon solid evidence backed up with reference to the major works consulted. Not that Runciman ignores other sources – it’s just that they appear to be so flippantly covered and referred to. It’s as if we can only expect to understand these other sources through the agency of David Runciman and as such at times he holds tenaciously to his own view whilst appearing to totally undermine any other opinion with little more than the Gospel According to the Establishment. This means that at times he comes across as rather arrogant and set in his ways, a sort of ’plus ça change, plus la meme chose. Le Roi.....C’est moi’.

Right at the start you would expect to see and fully define what we actually mean by ‘Democracy’. Runciman does get into it and points out that really, as the demos majorly excluded large sections of the populace i.e. women, slaves, non-ethnics, that modern democracy can only really be seen as having a very limited history, can only be seen as moving to be a major form of polity from either the emancipation of slavery (human chatteldom – there are many forms of slavery which still exist – 1807 – 1834 UK; 1865 USA) or the institution of universal suffrage (1928 UK, 1965 USA). But Runciman then appears to ignore these major arguments on the nature of Democracy referring back to Athenian Greece as the ‘Mother of Democracies’ when those with the minimum of nous are aware of the foundations of Athens being upon a slave state with a rather limited demos. He then goes on to make Democracy as merely suffering from some kind of mid-life crisis! Well how can we define 'mid-life' if we have no end point and the starting point is somewhat nebulous and ill-defined? So defining the crisis in Democracy merely as a ‘mid-life’ issue as if it were some sort of non-rational, impulsive erring-along-the-way-to-sensibility would seem trivial at least and erroneous in general.

But never mind. Nothing lasts forever. Except perhaps Climate Change. Or Mass Extinction or Civil Unrest riding upon its back. But then you see According to The Gospel of David that’s covered under his analysis of the three potential ends of Democracy –Coup, Catastrophe and Technological Takeover. No – no matter the threat, no matter the possible alternatives, Democracy in true Churchillian style being

Many forms of government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

.
Yes. Never mind all that. Democracy will prevail. It's just having a mid-life crisis. Sheeshhhhh!!!

As I look back through my copy I see the frequency and heaviness of the pencilled marginalia and my notes becoming meatier and wilder. By 25 pages in, the big 2B pencil is looking for more space and the notebook took over. In fact it took me two attempts to read this through to the end, the first one aborted as I felt overwhelmed by Runciman's liberal arts arrogance. Perhaps the issue should NOT be 'How Democracy Ends' but more along the lines of When? and Where? But if you've already decided that its just a mid-life crisis then when? and where? are non-issues. Perhaps the issue should be less about Democracy and more about Capitalism? I'll just leave that one hanging there as the Bold David appears to until he finally gets round to mentioning Capitalism late in the book under Technocracy, as it appears to be assumed that there is, as another so-called Great Conservative said, NO ALTERNATIVE! Therefore Democracy will survive. Even in the face of Global Crisis (Financial and Ecological) against which Democracy has for far too long stood and looked on with the attitude of laissez-faire that will stand as the lasting legacy of my generation’s age and which will be looked back at by future generations with utter astonishment and dismay.

Even on specifics I find Runciman quite unforthcoming and ill-cognisant of the real issues. It is not so much that Democracy might end through Coup or Catastrophe but rather the identification of the conditions that give rise to people like Erdogan, Modi and Trump, and perhaps importantly the rise of Neocons and Neoliberals and the alleged triumph of the Free Market which appears to threaten the basis of the world we live in. The early 21st century has seen a serious rise in the power and momentum of the Right, a dramatic increase again in levels of inequality as to be immoral and a rapidly increasing demise of the environment which will become catastrophic on a scale which will threaten civilisation. That Democracy as is currently understood might not end, but to all rights and purposes, ALREADY appears to have been subverted into some kind of right wing plutocracy/oligarchy run by big Capitalism and Big Technocracy against the will and the wishes of the majority. So although Runciman’s thesis may be correct (he’s a Cambridge Don, I’m a part-time agricultural labourer and painter) he seems to utterly overlook the very present danger of the rise of the Right and the threat this poses. Furthermore, the rise of inequality (a very cogent problem and one addressed fully in The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better by Wilkinson and Pickett) is premised by the rise of the Right and is an even greater threat than the End of Democracy. And we haven’t even gotten into discussing our democracies response to global warming and climate change yet, have we.

If you are a member of the Establishment then you can only accept gradual change. Drastic change, in any form, threatens the Establishment. Democracy IS the Establishment, and Runciman is its academic charioteer. He might (probably) see Maduro in Venezuela as a threat to democracy, whereas I might see CIA/Chinese/Russian/UK involvement in the political affairs of another country as an even greater threat to Democracy. But then... I’m not a member of the Establishment. One side sees ‘Coup’, the other side sees ‘Return of Democracy’ . Greece, Chile, Panama, Grenada, Vietnam.

I feel that though this book might well have been conceived to convey a message, that all was well and it would all come out in the wash, that it is severely at odds with both praxis and observation on the ground as well as lacking any degree of foresight because ‘there are no other previous models to go with’. The comparison with Germany 1932/33 is just crass. No one seriously is taking that as a model. One thing is for sure. We cannot stand back and allow either Inequality OR Climate Change to proceed unchecked. If Democracy can’t do anything to halt and turn back the trends in these two most pressing issues, then it has no right to persist.

This book was an interesting starting point but is seriously in error on its conclusions to the point of being dangerous. Perhaps the Bold David should have read Amartya Sens' 'Capitalism Beyond The Crisis' first. https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/ha...